Of Symbolism and Friendship
by Ranowa Hikura
Summary: Post-game. Ib/Garry parental fluff (no pairings). Ib and Garry talk about their time in the gallery together, Garry explains a few things, and Ib points out something Garry may have missed all along.


Hey all. I recently played through this game, and absolutely loved it, and decided to write this because Ib/Garry family fluff is just wonderful and because my muse for angst is worn out at the most inopportune time, and hoped this could bring it back (yes, Reversal fans, I'm talking about Reversal here...). I finally got some spare time to just sit down and proofread it.

Important story background info that just didn't make it into the story: Ib is 9, Garry is 20. Set a few months after the events of the game, assuming the Promise of Reunion ending (not that I got that ending, so I may reference some events that don't actually happen for that ending). As it JUST SO HAPPENS, Garry is an assistant teacher at Ib's school (AKA it's convenient for the plot, no explanation needed :D ), and Ib's class is doing a lock-in kinda thing where they all have a sleepover together at school. Elementary schools still do that, right? Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

The light of the full moon was a welcome, silvery intrusion to the otherwise murky darkness. Garry pulled a leg up onto the bench so he was sitting more comfortably and let his gaze roam around his surroundings, the school courtyard painted in an ethereal glow by the otherworldly light of the moon, one that turned the already innocuous gardens into something peaceful and beautiful. His eyes lingered on the few rows of roses, ones grown through much hard effort and care that he found just mildly ironic, and he had to admit, they were lovely indeed.

Still, he could only stomach a few seconds of the sight before he shivered and had to turn away.

_They may be pretty, _he thought stubbornly, _but their thorns are sharp. And what's the point of something looking pretty on the outside if it's dangerous on the inside? _

Maybe that was why Mary had chosen to intertwine their life forces with roses- if the choice was even hers at all. Because she herself was one, kind and well-meaning and just a bit ditzy on the outside but true intentions malicious and even murderous. It wasn't the least bit surprising that she was the creation of an artist that had a great taste for symbolism.

_Or maybe Mary was just Mary, a rose is just a rose, and I'm thinking too much. _

Garry sighed deeply.

He had, indeed, come out here to think. Because he couldn't sleep, as was so often the case nowadays, and had found himself inevitably drawn to the school's cursed rose garden, even though he'd known exactly what kind of thoughts it would bring up and exactly the kind of memories it would remind him of. _Maybe I'm a masochist, _he thought, then sighed again. Morbid thoughts like that weren't helping a thing.

Garry leaned his head back against the bench in irritation and allowed his tired eyes to slide closed with a sigh, the exhaustion of many near sleepless nights once again catching up with him. He thought that he was doing better now; he could function well during the night and get about his schedule without suffering from the anxious urges of irrational fears, the frantic panic attacks spurred on by the dark, small spaces, and art. Taking the job at the school had helped with that, he thought, cutting into his free time and giving him something to focus on.

But the nights were still an ordeal.

He kept his eyes closed and willed sleep to come, hoping the exhaustion that evaded him inside with the others despite heavily weighing eyelids would sweep over him now and give him at least a good few hours of rest.

And then, the door behind him gave a soft creak.

He was whirling around in his seat before he registered more than the fact that someone was behind him. His mouth opened to suck in an involuntary gasp and his hands moved to protect a nonexistent rose in his coat, leaving him with a pounding heart, feet trembling with the urge to run, and limbs shaking with the dilemma of fight or flight. _Run run run_ his mind said, _Run! _while his body screamed _Fight! Fight fight fight! _and Garry himself hovered somewhere in between the two primal urges, torn and stretched in two completely opposite directions until he was left with nothing but sheer instinct.

And then he actually saw who was behind him.

His instincts shut up, his heart relaxed, and tension unfurled. His hand released the death grip it had on the pocket that had once held his rose and his shoulders slumped a little, leaving him caught somewhere in between embarrassment and relief.

It was still with a distinct sense of reluctance, he thought, that his body calmed, even at the realization that there was no danger.

It was simply Ib standing there hesitantly, hovering in the small space between the door and its frame, half inside and half out. She clutched the door tightly, hanging off of it like it were some kind of lifeline, and watched him with those wide, almost unnatural eyes of hers with a slight uncertainty, as if she weren't sure if she should intrude or not.

She was not surprised by his startled (terrified) reaction, Garry noted, and he did not miss the significance of this. She just stood there patiently and waited for him to relax, and, somehow, the sight of her simply watching him calmly in what he thought was understanding made him sigh in relief. Ib was the only person he would welcome right now, in his state of mind, and he couldn't help but be glad that she had found him.

"Ib," he called quietly, gratefully, and shifted slightly on the bench to indicate that there was a space next to him. "Couldn't sleep either, huh?"

The girl shook her head quietly and slipped outside, letting the door close behind her with a muffled click. She then moved forward to join him, one hand rubbing absently at the loose red shirt that constituted her pajamas. "It was really noisy in there," she muttered, as if in explanation, then smiled at him. "And you weren't with the rest of the teachers. You're out here a lot after school, so I thought you'd maybe be here..."

Garry smiled himself. He wasn't surprised she'd noticed- nor could he say he wasn't glad that she had. "You're observant, Ib. And correct. I come out here a lot- helps me think."

Ib nodded herself, then shifted to wrap her arms around her knees and rest her head on them, looking out at the school's garden. He followed her gaze to see that she, too, had focused on the roses, and her expression had turned blank and her eyes, hazy with remembrance. He wondered what she saw in that harmless garden- if her eyes were drawn to the flowers themselves and her memories to what roses had once meant to them, or if instead she looked to the colors and thought about both the missing one- and the absent person. She only looked at them for a few moments, though, before she stubbornly turned away, just like he had, as if the sight was not something she wanted to see, and forced another smile. "You know, I only came to this thing because you said you were going to come, too," she exclaimed, her voice the slightest bit determined as if she wanted to force herself to forget about the roses by just talking to him. "So you shouldn't have left!"

Garry chuckled at her characteristic bluntness, but then blinked in surprise when the meaning of her words hit him. "Really? You only came because of me?"

Ib nodded again determinedly, then bit her lip. She lowered her eyes to the bench to stare at it silently, features written in indecision before she looked back up at him again and shrugged. "...I don't sleep that well at home anymore. I have bad dreams a lot. My parents didn't want me to come because of that, but I told them I would be okay, that I wouldn't have any nightmares tonight because my best friend was here. That's you." She poked him in the shoulder for emphasis and grinned.

Her words brought another smile to Garry's lips, and he leaned back farther against his seat and returned her look, unsure of what to say. It was no surprise that she had nightmares. It was a sad fact, yes, but no surprise, and saying that he was sorry about it wouldn't help progress the conversation. He had them, too. The surprising part was the declaration of friendship- a serious thing for nine year olds, he had just recently learned as he became versed in the drama of elementary school.

But, then, it really wasn't so surprising. Your best friends were supposed to understand you. And Garry was the only one in the world who could understand why Ib had nightmares.

_...I suppose, though, this friendship thing is a double-way street, if I want to think about it like that. _

"Thanks, Ib. You're my best friend, too."

The answer was ten kinds of cheesy and sounded like something one would read in a kid's storybook. Ib didn't hear it that way. She just grinned back at him, meeting his eyes for one short moment before shifting to look away. She reached up to start awkwardly twisting a few strands of her dark hair around her finger, using the movement to hide her expression before glancing back at him through her hair. "Do you... do you have bad dreams too, sometimes, Garry? About the gallery?"

That word itself was a memory he did not want to revisit anytime soon. It took effort to tempt his head into a nod, and even more so to clear his throat to speak. "Yes. ...Lots of times." It was one of the many reasons, now, that he was just glad he lived alone. It was still more often than not that he woke up in a cold sweat, and, even now, sometimes his awakenings were accompanied by a panicked shout. How was he supposed to explain to a roommate what those dreams were about? He still had yet to rearrange any of his furniture so its back wasn't up against a wall, and the ashes of the remains of any old pictures and painting he had once had weren't going to be hung back up any time soon. Any roommate would think he was crazy.

Ib didn't look very surprised by his answer. She almost looked a little sad, and quickly curled herself up tighter and shifted to gaze blankly out at the garden again. Garry frowned at the quiet unhappiness that had slipped into her expression, and watched on as she glanced to the ground, caught up in uncertainty, before at last clearing her throat to mumble, "...I told my parents, once. I tried to tell them what I was dreaming about, I mean. ...They didn't believe me."

Her words were soft and quiet, maybe a little petulant but certainly despairing, and Garry found himself unable to answer with anything that could take that despair away.

Of course they hadn't believed her. Of course they hadn't believed that there was a whole haunted world behind the paintings of that gallery, of course they hadn't believed a story about a painting coming to life and hunting down bodies and souls to steal as her own so as to slip into the outside world. Of course they hadn't believed the probably frantic, terrified ramblings of a nine year old of how a rose's petals represented life, and a bare rose stalk that was all thorns and no flower represented death.

But that wasn't what Ib wanted to hear. Hell, that wasn't what _he_ wanted to hear. He didn't want to know that the world would sooner call him crazy and lock him in asylum than believe what had happened to them both in that cursed gallery.

"They said I was just being scared by my dream, you know!" Ib burst out, and let out a little angry huff that was reminiscent of all the defiance and strength he'd seen from her in the gallery. The return of her usual demeanor made him release a quiet sigh of relief. "They said that dreams weren't real and I shouldn't be scared of them because they can't happen. But these dreams _did_ happen. They did!" She turned to look at him, and he was glad to see the hopelessness of before was gone, in its place anger and stubbornness.

"You're right, they did," he replied, nodding to try and appease her, show her that he did understand. "I know, Ib._ I_ know. Your parents, well- they weren't there. They can't understand what happened, but I'm sure they want to help you. They're probably just sad and scared that you're hurting and trying their best."

"I know they are," she said sadly. "And I'm really not mad at them. Or... _that_ mad at them," she amended with a weak chuckle. "I'm just mad at the gallery. ...And the roses. Stupid roses. And Mar-..." Ib cut herself off before she could complete the word and blinked, her angry expression overwritten by surprise, as if she was shocked by the name that had almost come out of her mouth. Her head turned back to the rose garden, her eyes flickering towards one single plant.

He looked back at the garden of roses, too, following her gaze to the few but strong petals of crimson and gold. His eyes went to the yellow flowers, as Ib's had, and he shifted to hide his ever so slightly shaking hands in his pockets. They were beautiful things, but even now, sitting here with Ib and the safest he'd felt in a while, he found himself glad that he would never have to hold one again. Never have to crush the stem to his jacket as he ran for his life, never have to obsessively count the petals, never carefully move his fingers between ten flourishes of life to ensure that there were still, in fact, ten.

That he'd never see a yellow rose that was not, in fact, a rose, and feel nothing but an unholy sense of terror in his gut that its owner was not what she seemed.

"...I'm sorry..." Ib whispered, and her voice was uncharacteristically meek. "I'm not mad at Mary, I shouldn't have said that. I just sometimes think I am, because she's the one who put us in the gallery in the first place. But I'm not, really. She- ...she just wanted a friend... that's all she wanted. Right?"

Garry blinked. He was, once again, surprised at just how astute Ib was for someone her age- at just how much she had understood in the unfortunate circumstances of their meeting. They had told each other little of what had gone on in the gallery when they'd been separated, when Garry had read of a scared, dreaming girl who wondered of friends, fun, and a life outside of a canvas, and Mary and Ib had been... whatever they had been. Garry's only interaction with the girl had been their initial meeting, and then, later, when he'd investigated her rose and she'd snapped. After that, her true colors had been only too clear. He had had no chance to establish a relationship with her... like Ib clearly had.

It seemed she'd gotten from Mary herself what he had from her diaries, letters, and journals- that she was a lonely girl who wanted a friend.

"You're a smart girl, Ib," he murmured, and he reached out a slow hand to rest it supportively on her shoulder. "I think you're exactly right. Mary just wanted a friend."

Ib's lips turned downwards, her eyes misting over with sheer remorse. Garry opened his mouth, his instinct to explain and comfort- and then quickly shut it again. There was nothing to explain- Ib understood it all. And he had no way to comfort, either- weren't happy endings supposed to be when the big bad guy got killed or the misunderstood villain ended joining up with the good guys? This time, the misunderstood villain had gotten killed. That was no happy ending.

He looked back to the roses. Those ever-present, ubiquitous roses.

_Those horrid... deadly... threatening... beautiful... wonderful... innocent roses. _

Red that once appeared to be dipped in blood, now, a faint dawn.

Yellow that once appeared to be a gem of bloody gold, now the shade of a store-bought carnation that would never wilt.

_And blue that I remember as bright as poison... now a milder shade of... of water..._

_Ib and I, we were beginnings and life. But Mary... was never real... _

_So why can't we forget her? _

...Maybe they weren't meant to.

Garry slowly started to smile. That was right. Maybe they _weren't_ meant to. Maybe the reason he was having so much trouble with all of this- why nightmares never went away and the childish murals of the hallways never seemed to stop moving in the corner of his eye and the heavy weight on his heart never lifted was because it was trying to tell him that he wasn't supposed to forget it. He was supposed to remember.

Emboldened at last, Garry stood and reached out a hand to his friend. "Come on. I want to show you something."

Ib slipped her small hand into his without hesitation, and a smile came to his lips, unbidden.

_Pitch black. Utter darkness. Nothing to see, no way to prevent this gallery from swallowing him up whole. "Ib!" he cried. "Ib! Where are you? Are you here? Ib!"_

"_I'm here, Garry!" _

_Such a warm sense of relief washed over him that he could not even breathe for a moment, and he turned immediately in search of her voice. "Thank goodness. I thought... Well, never mind what I thought! Just stay there, Ib. I'll come to you."_

And the moment his hand had found hers, there was no reason to be afraid anymore.

Just as now.

There was no reason to fear their once friend Mary. There was no reason to ever be afraid of someone who just wanted a friend.

A look at Ib showed that she was remembering the exact same thing as him, and the smile on her face told him that it, too, carried a good connotation for her rather than a bad one. He tightened his hold around her hand slightly and let himself remember that now, too, there was nothing to fear as he led her to the rose garden.

"Here," he said, sitting down with her so a small bed of flowers lay in between them. He reached out to lightly finger the petals of a yellow rose, and let his shoulders relax even further when he felt the soft , fragile texture, thin as paper and delicate as silk, shift between his fingers. Absolutely, perfectly real; not artificial or fake in anyway. Ib followed his lead, reaching out to touch a different flower, smoothing her smaller hand over a petal and rubbing her thumb across its surface.

"Did you know, Ib," he began, "that there are roses of all different colors? And that each different color has a different meaning?"

Ib looked back at him curiously and gave a mute shook of her head. He nodded back.

"Well, I thought about it, after... we got back. I knew what red roses meant, but I didn't know about yellow. So I looked it up. ...They mean friendship, Ib."

Her features brightened in understanding, and she smiled again. Her gentle strokes along the rose's petals slowed and she looked down at the flower. "Do you- do you think Mary knew that? Is that why she-?"

Garry shrugged. "I don't know. I like to think that she did. It helps gives the whole experience... meaning, I suppose. It helps me to know it wasn't all purposeless, not just a random nightmare created by the whims of a painting. As misguided as it was..."

"At least Mary had her reasons," Ib finished, with an understanding nod that said she knew exactly what she he was talking about. Garry smiled back, and the young girl gave the yellow rose another long look, her red eyes watching it curiously, before they moved away from it to look around the flower bed curiously, as if searching for something.

Then she frowned and turned back to him. "What about your rose, Garry? What does it mean? And how come there aren't any blue roses here?"

Garry chuckled again. "Well, blue roses are different than red and yellow. They actually don't exist in nature. They're very difficult to make- like mixing red and purple paint to make blue, kind of. As for the meaning, I actually had to look that up, too- though it seemed kind of obvious in hindsight. It represents the unobtainable, Ib. The... the impossible."

Ib frowned. She looked down at the ground for a moment, chewing on her lower lip as if in deep thought, her expression one that he now knew meant she was trying to puzzle out a meaning. She stared hard at her feet for a few seconds before at last looking back up at him. "What do you think that means?" she ventured at length. "The impossible?"

He shrugged again. "I didn't know at first, either. Then I thought about it some. And I think, Ib, it represents what she thought of the world outside the gallery. Outside her little canvased world." He waved a hand about them, gesturing at the world he was speaking of, and smiled down at her. "I think she gave me a blue rose because her only goal in life- no... her only goal in _existence_, " he corrected himself, because he still, after all this time, was not sure what Mary had possessed was _life_, "was to get to our world. Obtain the unobtainable."

Ib's eyes had widened throughout his explanation to become childlike orbs of wonder, and her tiny smile had grown into a full-grown grin, and the way she looked at him now left him feeling almost self-conscious. He felt the heat rise in his cheeks and chuckled awkwardly, looking back to the ground. "Well, um, something like that..."

"I like listening to you explain things. You're good at it," Ib giggled, and Garry flushed again. She gave another laugh then stopped abruptly, raising her hand to point an accusing finger at him. "Hey! You got better at explaining things! Before you were terrible!"

"I- well! I want to be a teacher! I had to get good at explaining things sometime. And it's not that easy; you try it, Ib!"

Ib giggled again, the smile that he had often worked so hard to get in the gallery coming easily now. They both laughed together, just smiling and laughing over a bed of flowers that had such importance to them, laughing until at last quiet fell once more, and they sat together in a companionable silence once again.

Garry watched Ib as she lowered her gaze to the flowers once again, her smile still truly happy and genuine, but eventually, it, too faded away into nothing. The girl then shifted a little nervously, her fingers coming to twist together in her lap, and she bit her lip before gathering the courage to say what she had to say. "I'm sorry, Garry. You weren't that terrible. At explaining things, I mean. ...I'm sorry if my questions were annoying, but whenever you would tell me what a word meant or describe them to me, it distracted me a little. ...Uh, sometimes, I would ask you what a word meant even when I already knew."

Garry blinked in surprise, especially taken aback by her nervous and almost ashamed expression, but then softened at her admission. "It's okay, Ib," he said, looking at her rather than the flowers. "You don't need to apologize. And your questions weren't annoying. Actually- if I'm being honest, I liked answering them. It was like a distraction for me as well- something else to focus on."

Ib blinked in surprise. She looked back up at him with a small grin, her bright eyes turning pleased again. "So... we, uh, helped each other, then?"

Garry nodded firmly. "Absolutely. You have no idea how relieved I was when you met up with me. Everything's better when you're not alone, right?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed eagerly. "That's what I told my parents about coming tonight! Cause I'd be with you, and that would help- Daddy didn't understand but Mom agreed with me! I think she'd like you, Garry. You guys think the same way."

Garry chuckled uncomfortably for a moment, memories from the required sexual harassment seminar coming up at the thought of Ib telling her mom her best friend was a male teacher, but all he said aloud was, "Maybe I'll call her in for a parent teacher conference then." The intricacies of appropriate relationships would go over Ib's head- would go over anyone's head, really, who wasn't concerned with bureaucracy, public expectations, or political correctness. Sometimes, a friendship was just a friendship- and there was nothing wrong with bonding over a shared trauma, gender and age regardless.

After all, he thought, Ib was the only friend he had who would ever understand why he was crouched out in a rose garden now, hands buried amongst a thicket of thorns and dirt, watching the still, colorful petals sway and trying in vain to connect them to a metaphor for life. Ib was the only friend he had who would ever understand... anything.

As Garry watched his only friend in the world right now, he found himself staring at the sight of Ib brightly inspecting a rose the color of her eyes, her previously amused expression now turned curious and wondering. After a moment, she glanced back at up at him, asking, "Hey- what does this mean?"

"Mmm?"

"Earlier," she explained with a shrug. "You said you knew what red roses meant. But you didn't tell me."

"I... oh." He relaxed a little, allowing a smile to come to his face again, and glanced out at the array of red flowers before him. "That's right. I didn't. Well, that one's easy. Red roses represent courage, Ib. And I didn't have to think too hard to figure out why she chose that color."

Rather than flushing at the compliment, or smiling, Ib's expression turned down in a slight frown, her features pinched in concentration. Garry had seen that expression too many times now to not recognize it, and he smiled, in spite of himself. "Courage means you're brave," he clarified. "Fearless."

Rather than brightening, though, Ib's frown only deepened. "Fearless?" she questioned. "But that's not right at all. I wasn't- in the gallery. I wasn't fearless there. I was scared of lots of things."

Garry bit his lip. "Well... maybe fearless wasn't the right way to describe it. I- ...courage is a way to _overcome_ fear, I guess. Everyone's afraid of something, but having the courage to _act_ in spite of that fear- that's what the red rose represents."

This time, his words did the trick of making Ib smile. And they sat there together, looking down at the roses their lives had once revolved around and smiling- and perhaps for the first time since their ordeal had happened, they did not regret what they had been through together.

Garry watched as Ib slowly reached out a hand to pull a red rose and a yellow rose together. She held them there for a moment, then sighed. "I wish there was a blue one here. Then it would look right."

"..."

Ib sighed at his non-answer. "I know what you think about her. But, when we were separated... I really don't think it was an act. I think she seemed strange because she just didn't have any friends. She didn't know how to act with other people. Yeah, she got really scary when we figured out who she was, but, before..." She tugged gently at a yellow petal. "...I think she could've been a good friend Garry."

"...Maybe," he conceded with a deep sigh. "Maybe so, Ib."


End file.
